Live Nation’s new Return to Real report argues that access to live music is becoming a loyalty currency, with brands using ticket inventory and venue perks to attract and retain customers.
Survey findings
The report draws on a global survey of 40,000 respondents aged 18 to 54 across 15 countries. It finds that live music ranks as the world’s favorite form of entertainment, ahead of sports and sex.
Among music fans, 93% say they crave real experiences over digital listening, and 80% say they would rather spend money on experiences than objects.
Loyalty programs shift toward access
Traditional loyalty programs have been built around transactions, such as earning points for purchases that can be exchanged for items with a dollar value. Live Nation’s research found that 66% of respondents engage with loyalty programs more than they did a year ago, while 64% feel less loyal to individual brands and 71% say most programs feel the same.
Brands have found that helping customers get closer to an artist can be more effective than another checkout incentive. Current partnerships include:
- Mastercard offers cardholders concert presales, premium tickets and VIP experiences through its Priceless partnership with Live Nation.
- Lowe’s provides rewards members benefits at 20 Live Nation amphitheaters, including discounted children’s tickets, complimentary lawn chairs and sweepstakes.
- DoorDash has a three-year partnership in Australia and New Zealand spanning Live Nation concerts, festivals and venues.
None of those companies primarily sell music. The value they offer is access to artists.
Fans travel and switch for access
There was a time when seeing a favorite artist depended on whether a tour came through town. Live Nation says fans collectively traveled more than 40 billion miles for concerts in one year. Fans now travel to destination festivals, multi-night residencies, reunion shows and major tour stops. They compare ticket availability across cities and sometimes find that flying elsewhere is easier or cheaper than buying resale tickets at home. Gig-tripping turns a concert into the organizing principle for a vacation.
The research also found that 85% attend live music to feel part of something bigger, and more than nine in ten respondents would consider joining or switching loyalty programs for live music benefits.
Spotify Reserved and fandom data
Spotify’s Reserved program uses streams, saves, shares, location and other activity to identify an artist’s most engaged listeners, then holds two tickets for eligible Premium subscribers to purchase before the general sale. Spotify said nearly 100,000 tickets had been reserved through the program by August.
This shifts ticket access from purchase history toward behavioral fandom. It can reward committed listeners instead of professional resellers, but it also means ticket inventory may be split across memberships, cards, subscriptions and data signals before a general sale. The old obstacle was a sold-out show. The emerging obstacle may be that too many portions of the room are made available first to different categories of insiders.
What artists should track
Brand partnerships can help fund tours, subsidize amenities and create fan experiences. Artists create the music, community, scarcity and emotional connection that make those rewards valuable, while participating brands may receive new members, customer data, increased spending and continued business.
If concert access becomes a customer-acquisition tool, artists should ask how much ticket inventory is involved, who controls the resulting data and how the value created by their fan relationships is being shared.
Live Nation’s report draws from a 2025 survey of 42,000 respondents across 15 countries and a 2026 loyalty study of 3,450 respondents across 12 countries. The report provides limited information about recruitment, weighting and country-level sample sizes, and its findings should be understood as Live Nation-commissioned brand research.
